Execs ignoring older audience

Posted: Thursday, November 18, 1999

BRIAN LOWRYLos Angeles Times

Attention, old people. In television parlance, this means anyone 55 and up. Wake up, locate your glasses, if necessary pop in your teeth. For once, here's a TV-related story with your interests at heart.

This was supposed to be the year of the teen-ager, as the major networks chased the audience that turned the WB's "Dawson's Creek" and "Felicity" into media darlings and the "Scream" films into box-office hits.

"Adolescence is a great period of time to write about," Jason Katims, creator of the WB's sci-fi drama "Roswell," told Time magazine in September.

To write about, yes. But to watch? Based on results for the new TV season, the evidence suggests the appetite for such fare is more limited than executives anticipated, or at least the portions were too large. Youth-oriented shows such as "Freaks and Geeks," "Get Real" and "Wasteland" are struggling ratings-wise. Fox canceled another, "Manchester Prep," without ever airing it.

Look around at what's working. There's "Judging Amy," succeeding in no small measure due to the presence of Tyne Daly; and "The West Wing," anchored by Martin Sheen's commander in chief. "ER" has received an injection from Alan Alda, and former tent-mate Mike Farrell can be found in "Providence."

At 56, Holland Taylor has given sex appeal a new look on "The Practice," the only possible crime in her supporting actress Emmy being that it came at the expense of Nancy Marchand's scheming matriarch in "The Sopranos." Della Reese is a workhorse for CBS, from TV movies to "Touched by an Angel," and James Whitmore was recently featured in a stunning guest shot on "The Practice" as a legendary barrister who kills his wife. Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts provide regular hilarity on "Everybody Loves Raymond," as do Susan Sullivan's starched blueblood mother and Mitchell Ryan's daft dad on "Dharma & Greg." And if Fox's "That '70s Show" is thriving this fall, one shouldn't overlook the parents played by Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp.

Still, if anyone is waiting for Hollywood to stop celebrating youth, don't hold your breath. Just last week, in fact, the Hollywood Reporter published its "next generation" issue, profiling executives age 35 and under, who offered such insights as their favorite "power spot." The gym and the tennis court received votes.

It's hard to imagine for whom such a list is intended, other than securities brokers and marketers of sports-utility vehicles. Even the responses were annoying. Consider 26-year-old James Murdoch, executive vice president at News Corp., who failed to cite "Being born Rupert Murdoch's son" as either his "big break" or "career milestone."

While part of the problem is this exaltation of youth, the main culprit continues to be callous economic factors that govern television.

The vast majority of advertising is aimed at adults ages 18 through 54. As reasons, experts cite their greater willingness to try out different brands; more residents per household (few 70-year-olds have three kids at home), which equals more volume in terms of what's purchased; and the desire to catch people when they're young, hopefully turning them into loyal customers for decades to come.

Put simply, this means millions of older folks watching "Diagnosis Murder" aren't worth nearly as much to CBS as their kids and grandchildren viewing NBC's "Friends." That's primarily why network TV - beyond the hoary confines of "60 Minutes," whose anchors have more years among them than the entire population of the WB network - has been a place where seniors range from invisibility to derision, comically dismissed as old coots or horny grandmas.

Small wonder that Monika White, president of the Center for Healthy Aging in Santa Monica, said that when it comes to the media, "Age discrimination is pretty blatant. . . . It feeds into a lot of myths - that older people can't do anything, that they're doddering. The most damage that happens is it (fosters) an unspoken fear of aging, when most people 65 and older are really just fine."

Indeed, statistical data indicate that older people have never been healthier or more affluent - an observation usually limited on TV to local newscasts that close an otherwise grim half-hour with some cutesy piece about a skateboarding septuagenarian.

"Today, 50-, 60- and 70-year-olds don't see themselves as old, and more important, they've become the richest segment of society," said Kenneth Dychtwald, author of "Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old." '

According to Dychtwald - chief executive of Age Wave Inc., a research and consulting business based in Emeryville, Calif. - a shift has gradually occurred through the 1990s, with 10,000 baby boomers currently turning 50 each day. While the media focus on youth is still intense, he noted that certain product categories - such as financial services and pharmaceuticals - are waking up to the buying power of older people.

Progress, however, remains slow. Despite inroads by "mature" actors, nothing has addressed the plight of older writers - which, in this conversation, does not include a 32-year-old who pretends to be 19.

Assuming it's true that writers are most comfortable with what they know, the thirtysomethings behind many TV series not surprisingly craft characters their age or younger - just as those "next generation" executives prefer playing tennis or sharing a latte with someone in their age bracket. What they're ignoring, of course, is that while no 25-year-old writer has experienced old age, every 65-year-old was once 25.

If nothing else, the actors mentioned should inspire producers to consider taking better advantage of the seasoned talent twiddling its thumbs out there. Seeing more vibrant characters with a little gray in their hair may not entice more young adults to watch, but it will provide a more accurate vision of what awaits them and maybe even result in more entertaining shows.

Given the TV industry's existing priorities, we're probably talking about supporting roles as Felicity's grandmother, or the elderly veteran Dawson visits while researching a paper about "Saving Private Ryan." Granted, it's not much, but at present it's all anyone not part of Hollywood's "next generation" can hope for.